Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (6728)	12/10/2010 11:58:56 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 49069

waste not, want knot. = Report minimizes fears over CA cap and trade system California’s effort to cap carbon emissions by gasoline refiners, utilities and other large polluters will have little impact on consumers and businesses in the state while creating up to 623,000 new jobs over the next decade, according to a new report. Next 10, a San Francisco nonprofit group that supports green technology, estimated the state’s cap-and-trade program will increase electricity costs by an average of 2.3 percent percent to 4.1 percent per household by the year 2020. The forecast – which comes a week before the California Air Resources Board’s will vote on whether to approve the new rules for its cap-and-trade program – provides a sharp contrast to industry arguments that the state’s climate change law will destroy thousands of jobs and increase electricity bills by at least 20 percent. “There’s very minimal impact on the California economy and there’s very minimal impact on energy prices,” said F. Noel Perry, Next 10’s founder. A key component of the state’s landmark climate change law, the cap-and-trade program essentially places a ceiling on the amount of carbon emitted by the state’s 500 largest polluters. The program – which will begin operating in 2012 – allows companies that emit less carbon than their allowed amounts to sell their unused allowances to companies that pollute heavily, creating powerful market incentives for the companies to reduce emissions voluntarily. State officials plan to take a go-slow approach by initially giving away the pollution allowances to companies for free, rather than selling them at auction. As the program ramps up, however, the state will place a price on the allowances. Proceeds from the auctions could be used for energy efficiency programs, rebates to consumers or other climate change initiatives. How the allowances are distributed will have a big bearing on the number of green jobs created, the study said. If the allowances are given away freely, about 47,000 clean-tech jobs will be directly created by 2020. If all of them are auctioned off, about 163,000 new jobs will be formed. climateprogress.org

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (6728)	12/11/2010 12:09:54 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49069

Latin America counts the cost after deadly rains by Staff Writers Panama City (AFP) Dec 9, 2010 The heaviest rains in at least a decade has left hundreds dead in Colombia, Venezuela and Panama, caused millions of dollars in damages and forced a rare 17-hour closure of the Panama Canal, officials said. Rescuers said Thursday they have recovered 55 bodies out of 121 believed to be buried alive in a massive weekend mudslide in northwestern Colombia. The Antioquia department governor's spokesman Jorge Salazar said 23 of the victims were children. Many of the children had participated in celebrations for their first communion near Colombia's second-largest city of Medellin. The yearly rainy season has been exacerbated by a La Nina weather phenomenon, in which cooler-than-normal water circulates in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. In Venezuela to the east, driving rains began receding after causing floods and cave-ins that have killed at least 35 people over the past week and left 124,000 homeless. Another six people are still missing. Earlier in the season, La Nina's deadly havoc killed some 263 people in Guatemala and over 130 in Mexico. Hundreds of rescue workers in Colombia battled a narrowing time window to find people still alive under the mud, combing through the mess with sniffer dogs and heavy machinery to search for the remaining 66 missing. Authorities had initially estimated that up to 200 people were caught in the avalanche. So far this year, the rains in Colombia have left 206 people dead, while 119 remain missing and 1.7 million were affected. Over 2,000 homes were destroyed and 275,000 were damaged, according to the latest official figures. The leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group proposed a truce with President Juan Manuel Santos's government so that disaster response work could proceed unhindered. In neighboring Panama, recent floods from heavy rains have collapsed bridges, destroyed homes, cut off several communities and caused disruptions to electrical and water supply. Authorities updated the toll to 10 from the downpours that left some 4,000 people homeless. "We will declare a state of national emergency and we will begin to bring aid and assistance to all populations that have had problems," President Ricardo Martinelli told reporters. "These are the fiercest rains in Panamanian history since records began. Some people say it has not rained so much in the past 5,000 years." The Panama Canal reopened earlier Thursday after a suspension due to heavy rains that swelled nearby lakes flowing into the key transport route, which handles five percent of global trade. It was the first time the entire canal was closed since the 1989 US invasion of the Central American nation. The 80-kilometer (50-mile) man-made artery links the Atlantic to the Pacific, with around 40 ships passing through the canal each day terradaily.com == sidebar Worse to come as Australia flood toll rises Sydney (AFP) Dec 10, 2010 - Floods sweeping across eastern Australia that have left four people dead and cost millions of dollars in crop losses could worsen next week, emergency officials warned Friday. Some 30 regions have been declared natural disaster areas in New South Wales and more than 300 people have been isolated by the flood waters, but further storms are forecast for the nation's most populous state. "The conditions are easing right now and over the weekend, but the flooding will potentially increase next week," a state emergency services spokesman told AFP. "We are now monitoring very closely the Macquarie River, the Namoi river and the Murrumbidgee. If their levels rise, there's a potential to require evacuation." The floods, which have also affected Victoria to the south and the northeastern state of Queensland are estimated to have cost 500 million dollars (493 million US) in crop losses in New South Wales alone. Three people in Queensland and one woman in New South Wales have died in flood-related incidents since last week, prompting emergency services to urge people not to drive through the floods. In Victoria, a major flood warning has been issued for two river regions, while Rockhampton, on the north Queensland coast, was bracing for possible floods early next week.